I guess there have been drastic changes to Guild Wars since I left it. The whole Ender's Game thing where groups run at each other and "PVP" not only got boring extremely fast (CTF oh I mean Capture the Relic thing was poorly designed with horrible maps) but it's also what the PVP system in WoW has become; Duels. Duels with groups! JAWESOME!
Considering that the Arena system wasn't implemented back then, I'll agree that GW was slightly different from WoW, otherwise I saw little difference. Oh, it was prettier. And really Asian. And the default UI sucked.
SHOW ME WHAT I HAVE MISSED ALL THIS TIME
I don't know how to show you as you seem to have missed it all. The pvp is miles beyond WoW. At this point I'm ready to declare WSG the only worthwhile and real wow pvp to partake in. Guild Wars has Guild vs Guild, which gets to be so intense that I actually quit it, then theres the tournament/tombs/heroes ascent(keeps changing name) that is a 6v6/8v8(keeps changing too =/) ladder tournament with different maps and victory scenarios, then theres random, team and challenge arena. There's Hero Battles that allow you to bring Heroes(self customized and controllable AI bots) and control tiny nodes for points and kills for points. There's also alliance battle which is 12 v 12 node control battle with the nodes granting defense or attack boost, and the middle node granting the holder a dragon.
But outside of the variations of pvp, its just that the gameplay and battle system is so much better it makes any form of the pvp better. And there's balance, quick fixes and constant tweaking. Everything has a counter and you can't 'one shot' anyone.
As for how it's different than WoW, well it's a just totally different idea from WoW. You build your WoW character through a long leveling process and then through gear and stats, but in the end you play the character pretty much like everyone else does and you hope for big crits. GW is a short leveling process, everyone can easily get the same armor and armor stats, but you really build your character through attributes, skill selection and how you play. Imagine WoW if pvp rewards were easy to get and there were far more talent trees and your talent selection meant everything. Now speed up WoW by about 1000%. One of the differences I always saw between the games is that in WoW a lot of characters look different from each other, but they play the same. In Guild Wars all the characters look the same, every necro looks like the next necro, but they play so diferently. There's four Necromancer attribute lines. You can play the blood attribute line in four different ways at least. You can be a blood spiker, a degen siphoner, an 'Order' Necro that buffs everyone, or a self sacrificing energy battery for your teammates. That is just one of the attribute lines for one class. You then also have the two class system which adds even more combinations. In comparison, the wow Warlock class which is similiar to a Necro has about 3 ways to play it and they all mostly use the same skills.
BUT SINCE THIS IS A THREAD ABOUT WOWMy healbitch Druid is coming around with some nicer gear now. I got the Cloak of Healing Rays, and a blue 3 socket chestpiece. I can also still crit for 3k in feral gear in catform. Tree form seems to benefit best by having more than one healer. It really lacks in emergency heals, or save heals, with no bubble and no natures swiftness+healing touch boom heal. It does a lot of tank healing with the HoTs and boosts your other healers healing as well. Right now my tree form spirit boost is about +75 to heals. I also conserve more mana. It just gets tricky when I have switch out to decurse, depoison or use a healing touch and then waste mana switching back into tree form. There's no game balance reason for the form to be so restricted/gimped. I think it's just a dumb lore based gameplay idea, like no entangling roots inside(though mobs can do such).
